This is why I'm a bad blogger

This is my Memorial Day weekend, in point form, to demonstrate part of why I am terrible at blogging.

-Thursday morning, work at 5
-Thursday afternoon/evening, spend time with Jer's parents and grandparents (who are visiting from out of town), dinner at Ruby Tuesday's
-Friday morning, work at 5
-Friday afternoon, necessary nap
-Friday evening, Jer's cousin's wedding, 90 minutes away. Home after midnight.
-Saturday morning, sleep in a little bit
-Saturday afternoon, picnic in the park, volleyball
-Saturday evening, dinner with Jer's parents and grandparents
-Sunday morning, church, get there early to drum with the worship team
-Sunday afternoon, necessary nap
-Sunday night, go out for a coworker's birthday, home after 2
-Monday morning, work at 5:30
-Monday afternoon, family barbecue
-Monday evening, gaming until well after midnight
-Tuesday, no work, collapse into a quivering mass of recovery.

It sure was fun, though, but who has time to blog in the midst of all that? On the upside Jer has finally finished the massive computer project that he was working on that was preventing me from uploading and editing photos and videos. So, I can finally post pictures again! On the downside, I now have 60 minutes of video clips and 3.5 gigs of photos to sort through. I may find time next month. Maybe.

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A passel of partial posts

I've had thin, fine, straight hair my entire life. Now, crazy hormones are making it get thicker and curvier. Of course, it's not making nice, pretty curls, though. It's made two random kinks in useless places, and I just look like I've been wearing a tight hat or something.

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Valerie cut a tooth today. It's on the top, right, but not in the middle. Is it weird to get side teeth before middle teeth?

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For several months, we have been using sign language with Valerie. We don't do very many signs, but I have been fairly consistently doing "mommy" and "milk" when I ask her if she wants to nurse. This morning, she quite clearly made the sign for milk, so I nursed her. We were both pleased. She made her first sign! She gave me milk! Then, she kept making the "milk" sign all day, for "pick me up", for "I want my mommy", for "wet diaper", etc. I think she's just super excited at learning her first word, and now she wants to use it for everything. Or she made the sign by accident, and got super excited at how much attention I gave her for doing it, and wanted to keep getting that attention. Either way, it's still really cute!

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Quick Note

Okay, so I finally finished Valerie's monthly letter, which I started writing a week ago. I didn't realize that Blogger would post it backdated to the date I started it, though, so it showed up behind the other two posts that I wrote between then and now. So, if you're looking for the nine month letter, you can find it here.

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Mother's Day: A Two-Thousand-Word Essay

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Computers

Computers. Bah.

I used to be very lucky with computers. My first laptop, a 1997 Toshiba brick, lasted me for four years, until it was stolen. Its replacement (which I count as the same computer, because the insurance paid for it) lasted me for six more years. In ten years, I only had to buy one computer. That's a pretty good track record.

At some point, Jeremy convinced me to put Linux on my laptop, and in spite of my initial frustrations, I eventually got used to it, and even came to like it. I'm not a typical Linux user, though, because I don't care about what's new and exciting. I just want a basic computer where I can find what I want, do what I want, and not have my computer freeze all the time. If there was something I wanted my computer to do that it didn't do, I would describe it to Jeremy, and he would eventually get my computer to do it for me. (Usually. Apparently, the things that I think are basic and simple are often ridiculously complicated.) That computer kicked the bucket about two years ago. I'd like to blame Linux, but really, I think Linux was its life support, dragging it out for several years of life past its natural lifespan. So I can't complain too much.

When we replaced that laptop, Jeremy was on a relatively short-lived mac kick. So, I got a refurbished iBook. It was great except for that little line on the screen, and the tendency for the screen to invert colors when it was at the wrong angle. But those little screen problems kept on getting worse until one day, it just went black. Poof. Display gone. In less than a year.

Apparently, you can't fix an iBook screen for anything like a reasonable price, so that was the end of that. I had Jer set up his extra desktop in the living room for me, but I really missed having the mobility of a laptop. I was given a hand-me-down ThinkPad (fourth-hand, I think?), which is great for 90% of what I do on a computer - email and reading blogs - but doesn't really have the speed for things like editing pictures and videos. But Jer liked having a desktop in the living room, anyhow, so the desktop stayed, and I use it for photos and videos, and do everything else on my laptop.

But then Jeremy, who is a typical Linux user, decided to install a new version of Linux on the desktop, even though the one it was running was perfectly fine. And the next time I tried to use it, the photo software crashed. And the time after that, and the time after that. I really wanted to post pictures from our trip to Virginia last month, but I couldn't get the photos to upload. And while it only takes a day to make Linux stop working correctly, apparently it takes a month to get it working correctly again. Or more.

So, I am trying to get Valerie's monthly letter written, but most of this month's photos are still on the camera. Fortunately, I have a spare memory card, so I'm still able to take pictures, but the prospect of sorting through them all just gets more and more daunting every day. I finally broke down and started uploading some of them to my laptop, but it's really testing its processor's limits. And my patience's.

Monthly letter coming soon. I hope.

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Nine Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are nine months old, now! Most moms would probably make some kind of comment at this point about "being out as long as you were in", but that wouldn't be true in your case. You were born early, so you've already been "out" three weeks longer than you were "in", and that particular milestone passed unnoticed before I thought to do the math.



Maybe it's just in contrast to last month's lousiness, but this month was really fun. You didn't hit any major, obvious milestones (like cutting new teeth or saying your first words), but you blossomed so much that it's hard to think of you as a baby anymore. You've become a little person. You don't quite say words yet, but you are very communicative. You babble conversationally, and sometimes, it really sounds like you're speaking. If the adults are having a conversation that doesn't include you, you will voice your opinion on the subject, loudly if necessary. You occasionally repeat sounds that we make, especially musical ones. Sometimes you even match our pitch. You love music. If the TV is on, you will turn and give it your full attention during (and ONLY during) the opening credits. Once the music is over, you will go back to whatever you were doing before. The best part about this is that the opening credits to The Office or Doctor Who are just as entertaining to you as the opening credits to Elmo's World, so we can escape annoying children's programming for a little longer at least.

You also love percussion, and will drum on any remotely drum-like surface that you can get your hands on. Board books are great for this. Your favorite toys are the ones with rattles inside, and you shake them with surprisingly good rhythm. This is nothing new, however; when I was pregnant with you I played the drums in church, and you used to kick me rhythmically when I was done.

Perhaps the most exciting development this month has been your capacity for independent play. Once you outgrew your swing, that was pretty much the end of me being able to put you down and keep you happy for long enough to do a load of dishes. I would try and put you down with some toys to buy a few moments to, say, run to the bathroom, but it would only last for two or three minutes at most. But this month, that all changed. You can sit on the floor surrounded by toys and keep yourself amused for a half hour or more. You actually want me to put you down sometimes.



I think your newfound contentedness on the floor has everything to do with your rapidly developing mobility. Whether it is a cause or an effect, I don't know for sure. Maybe you're more content on the floor because you can wiggle your way over to new and exciting contraband, or maybe you started wiggling your way around the room because you were spending more time on the floor, where pieces of paper and extension cords were enticing you to come and put them in your mouth. Either way, you definitely don't stay where I put you anymore. You still don't exactly crawl, but you can squirm around in circles, roll across the room, and wriggle over to whatever you are trying to reach. Usually, when you try to crawl, you just move backwards, but recently, you've actually made some forward progress, commando-style, on your belly. You haven't quite grasped the "hands and knees" thing yet, but you will push down on your toes until your bum is high in the air. It doesn't get you anywhere, but it's awfully cute.



We took you to Virginia for a wedding this month, and it really couldn't have gone better. You slept in a different bed, met lots of different people, stayed out late with mommy and daddy while they socialized, ate Ethiopian food, met a sheep, and wooed everyone with your general good-baby-ness. I was so proud of you. I know sometimes I hear other moms talk about their babies who take two naps a day and go to bed at 8:00 pm every night, and sometimes I almost wish my baby was like that. But then I think about times like our trip to Virginia, and I take back my almost-wish. I honestly can't imagine having to rush home to get you to bed on time. When you're tired, you'll just fall asleep, wherever, whenever, and you'll sleep till you're not tired anymore. So what if I can't count on that hour in the afternoon every day to do the laundry. I'm not very good at living on too tight of a schedule, anyhow; we like to fly by the seat of our pants in this family. I'm so grateful that you do, too.



I had many more things that I wanted to talk about in this letter, but I feel like this letter is already on its way to being too long. I was going to talk about all the things you do with your feet - how you rattle your plastic links with your toes, how you will use your feet to brace a book that you want to look at, and how you can even get your big toe into your mouth if the mood strikes you.



I was going to talk about how you passed the 20 pound mark this month, and how you're still in the 95th percentile for height. I was going to talk about how much you love to feed yourself finger foods, and how you can polish off an entire avocado in one sitting. I was going to talk about how much you hate to poop in your diaper, so we bought you a potty to poop in, and you actually use it (with a little help, of course). But if I said all the things I wanted to say, you'll be ten months old before this letter is finished. So let me just say, Valerie, I love you; thanks for a really good month.

Love,
Mama

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Fun Fertility Fact

Most people don't know this, but if you draw on a pregnant woman's belly, you will be pregnant within a year (or your spouse, if you are male).

File that away for future reference.

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Watching Her Learn

She can't quite crawl, yet. But if I put her on the floor, she doesn't stay in one place anymore. She can roll, pivot, and slither backwards, and she is starting to figure out how to put those things together to progress slowly, awkwardly towards her goal. Today it was a plastic bag with a paper envelope in it. It started out three feet away from her, at 180 degrees from the direction she was facing. She squirmed, twisted, and wiggled her way over to it, and five minutes later, I heard the telltale crinkle of plastic in her mouth. I resisted the urge to take it away from her right away. She was so triumphant. It was her prize, and she had crossed mountains to acquire it. She took the envelope out of the bag, and squirmed her way back to the spot where I had put her down. Eventually, she bit off a chunk of the envelope, and I had to take it away from her, but for a few fleeting moments, I was able to sit back and revel in her joy. To see the world from her perspective, full of interesting textures and things that make cool, crinkly sounds. The sheer joy of discovery, as those things suddenly become attainable, albeit through herculean effort.

I guess I should start baby-proofing the house.

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Guessing Game

Can you guess what will happen when you decide you're too lazy to go all the way into the other room to change the baby's diaper, so you just go ahead and change her on the bed, just this once?

I'll give you a hint: It involves everybody squeezing onto one side of the bed for the rest of the night in order to avoid a rather substantial wet spot.

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Eight Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are eight months old, now!

This month was pretty lousy. You were sick, I was sick, your dad was sick. You had your first course of antibiotics, and your poor little gastrointestinal system is still reeling from that. You've also been super-clingy, due in part to the sickness, and due in part to me being at work more than usual. For a baby, especially one who doesn't take naps on any kind of schedule, I must say that you have an uncanny sense of time. If I work one hour later than usual, you get antsy and fussy, and cling desperately to me as soon as I get home. It breaks a poor mama's heart, and I'm only working part-time! I honestly don't know how other moms work full-time.



One exciting thing that happened this month was that you learned how to roll over. You rolled over from your back to your front for the first "for-sure" time on March 8, and it quickly became one of your favorite pastimes. You haven't rolled over from your front to your back, yet, which I guess has to do with the fact that you have no real interest in being on your back. It's easier to play with your toys while you're on your front. It's funny, though, because I remember when you were really little and you didn't like tummy time at all, and I felt like I was doing something wrong. I guess you got the hang of it eventually.



You have recently expanded your vocabulary to include the letter "d", which means that you say "dada" fairly often in the course of your babbling. I don't know if you know what you're saying, but I love hearing your voice, and I love that it sounds like you're actually talking. I don't even mind too much that you stumbled on the letter "d" before the letter "m", although I probably would be more quick to call it real words if you were saying "mama". You definitely love how responsive we are to your "talking", however. You might not quite know what it means, but you know you're doing something that gets you lots of attention, and you love that, so you keep on making the "dada" noises.



All in all, though, I've got to admit that I'm happy that this month is over. It broke my heart to see you sick, and it was made even harder by the fact that I was too sick to really take care of you as well as I would have liked. To your credit, though, you were such a trooper through the whole thing. Even at your sickest point, you were still a laughing, friendly, beautiful baby. Your parents could learn a thing or two from you about joy. Thank you for being such a joy, Valerie.

Love,
Mama.

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